y u no take risks?

Twist.vmf

L420: High Member
Jul 29, 2016
439
208
everything is a formula, everything needs to have just the right amount of (insert mapping term here)
is anyone breaking the mold anymore? making odd maps? new gamemodes? new struggles for players to fight? i feel like it's getting repetitive, at this point we just make reskins of the same old stuff.

so i'm going to make a map that will force players out of the comfort zone...and you will hate me for it.


but really, how are we supposed to make new ground with somany restrictions? especially in the game industry.
 

sooshey

:3c
aa
Jan 7, 2015
514
410
everything is a formula, everything needs to have just the right amount of (insert mapping term here)
is anyone breaking the mold anymore? making odd maps? new gamemodes? new struggles for players to fight? i feel like it's getting repetitive, at this point we just make reskins of the same old stuff.

so i'm going to make a map that will force players out of the comfort zone...and you will hate me for it.


but really, how are we supposed to make new ground with somany restrictions? especially in the game industry.
It's not really "restrictions", it's what's been tried and proven to work or not work. Like nobody makes underwater maps because nobody likes fighting while swimming. Once in a while, a cool new idea surfaces, and it gets recognition if it actually works and is fun. But that's not every day. You're welcome to try doing unconventional things but don't be discouraged if it's not positively received.
 

nickybakes

You should've played Rumbleverse
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Jul 28, 2015
911
1,739
Actually, people will enjoy maps that differ from the formula, and try new things a lot more than something that follows it. However, you do need to understand what works and what doesn't. Even though there isn't any "flat and empty" maps in the game, doesn't mean its a good idea to make them because its "breaking the formula".
 

Lain

lobotomy success story
aa
Jan 8, 2015
724
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Oasis is probably my favorite 'new' map, it doesn't feel like anything else in TF2 and it really is an experience.

But other than that, I don't think you have nearly enough experience in making levels to state that you've seen it all before. People don't break the mould, make odd maps or new gamemodes because they already have, almost everything you can think of has been tried and it's all be garbage (and if it wasn't it was expanded upon).

I think we've still at the point where you can map interesting gameplay, but I don't think it's the game that's in these boxes that you're categorizing them in, it's your thought process. You're probably thinking of everything too rigidly. New maps are made on almost a weekly basis, they're mostly terrible but still, new ideas, experiments, people trying to break the mould.

But really if it's innovation you want, you should stop making levels for a 9 year old game with one of the biggest level design communities in gaming right now.
 

Sergis

L666: ])oo]v[
aa
Jul 22, 2009
1,874
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Gotta learn those "restrictions" reeeally really well before you can start breaking them intelligently.
sad but true, gotta learn to clonemap before you go beyond the clonemap or the process will be long and painful. its also true tho that most maps do feel a bit too samey to the point where you play one map you've played 95% of them, same paths same flanks same heightdifferences same faceless shacks same good-but-done-a-million-times gameplay and no real reason to play one particular map over another
 

Muddy

Muddy
aa
Sep 5, 2014
2,574
4,592
cp_shelter was an attempt to make something different, and although it paid off in the end, it took a lot of experimentation, trial-and-error and plan ol' failure before I got something that worked. And when Egan's pd_watergate was in development, that too underwent a lot of changes (both for the map's layout and the gamemode).

Point is, although trying new things is fairly uncommon, it's not unheard of. It just tends to take longer, and involve more trial and error. Patience, aye.
 

Twist.vmf

L420: High Member
Jul 29, 2016
439
208
Gotta learn those "restrictions" reeeally really well before you can start breaking them intelligently.
wail i have you here i just want to say that the tutorials you made really helped me get into this and i wish you would make more, and thanks for commenting in the thread
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
Gotta learn those "restrictions" reeeally really well before you can start breaking them intelligently.
Precisely. It's like how you're expected to learn how to draw realistically even if you're planning to become a cartoonist. You gotta learn to crawl before you can walk, and you gotta learn to walk before you can bust a sick move on the dance floor.
 

Crowbar

Spiritual preprocessor
aa
Dec 19, 2015
1,455
1,297
While I get Crash's point, and he's no wrong, imo learning how to walk before deciding not to walk would be a better analogy. Doesn't sound all that right now does it?
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
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Another thing to point out is that while we do have a lot of "rules" that we try to convince people to adhere to in their map designs, they're almost all of the what-not-to-do type — meaning we're not trying to discourage them from taking risks so much as repeating other people's known mistakes.
 

The Smk

L3: Member
Oct 15, 2015
119
21
First off most People said what needed to be said allready but i jsut want to give you an example i tried making an a/d arena map the first time where people didnt know how to play the map it was fun but because a new gamemode like that had so many problems it turned from fun to frustrating. Most of the time you will end up with something that dosent work and rarely its gonna be fun for anyone so keep it in mind
 

Fantaboi

Gone and one day forgotten
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Mar 11, 2013
892
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First off most People said what needed to be said allready but i jsut want to give you an example i tried making an a/d arena map the first time where people didnt know how to play the map it was fun but because a new gamemode like that had so many problems it turned from fun to frustrating. Most of the time you will end up with something that dosent work and rarely its gonna be fun for anyone so keep it in mind

That sounds like poor design as opposed to trying something new. With doing something so new you have to put a ton more effort into giving knowledge to players and that's one reason people don't wanna take risks. The education process is increasingly harder and frustrating for developers
 

Idolon

they/them
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Feb 7, 2008
2,105
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I've seen people ask "why does this arena map have two points?" before the first round starts, and this was months after Invasion came out. I think our testing group has a particular aversion to new stuff, which I think comes from how non-standard maps are typically in the vein of surf or idle, which aren't really worth testing with us (maybe 5-10% of us can surf).

My best advice is to make your alphas look nice (consistent and clean texturing/alignment, good lighting, final compile settings, cubemaps, etc.) and make sure your new gamemode can be understood very intuitively, even if it means making nice graphics for an a1. Good looking maps play better.
 

nitewalker

L2: Junior Member
Aug 5, 2014
64
141
i think the tf2maps testing group actually has less of an aversion to new stuff than the average tf2 player does, it's just that people have such a serious aversion to new game content in general. look at nearly every update, which the community will inevitably say that its the worst update in history and that the game is dead. when a player is playing on a new map, they at least have the familiarity of the gamemode to fall back on. if its a new map and a new gamemode, its very easy to get overwhelmed with information and just say "this map is confusing, thus this map is bad"

non standard gamemodes exist in a catch-22 where they need more testing than a standard map, but will always receive less enthusiasm for testing because most players are less likely to enjoy it.

another issue is that it takes so much effort and thought to design a great map that its not worth that level of effort to design a map that will get less enthusiasm from the community (both tf2maps and in general) and has a much, much smaller chance of ever becoming official
 

MegapiemanPHD

Doctorate in Deliciousness
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Mar 31, 2012
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It's less people not taking risks than it is people realizing their risks where unsuccessful or need more work. I've dabbled into different ideas through some of my maps without much success. Some just don't work with the games mechanics well while others need some rethinking. Successful unique maps are always a pleasure to see but don't happen as often as successful maps reusing some ideas.
 

Blade x64

Logical insanity
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Sep 3, 2009
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There's a reason most people follow recipes when cooking. When you want your dish to be enjoyed, you stick to what's known and predictable.

Not everyone has the finer understanding of chemical processes behind baking, or what makes combinations of food taste good and bad. So most inexperienced experimentation boils down to throwing random shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. This can work for simpler dishes, but it's futile for complex ones.

One issue is finding willing test subjects to maintain an iterative process to figure out what should be changed. Another issue is that taste is subjective. Pizza is enjoyed by nearly everybody, so variations of it tend to be well received. Start making seafood, and suddenly you're getting a lot of people that express dislike.
 

IrishTaxIDriver

L6: Sharp Member
Sep 27, 2008
271
149
Its a tough question. The best content always bends or breaks a rule or two. But mostly Crash and fubarFX are right. You need to understand why those guidelines are in place before you can understand how to subvert them, and frequently those subversions are failures.

Just build, test, and don't be afraid to make mistakes or fuck things up. Its a proven path to personal growth.
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
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so i'm going to make a map that will force players out of the comfort zone...and you will hate me for it.
Players prob will just hate the map instead.

And with rules of mapping: Its like the decimals of pi. They appear entirely random and many dont remember alot of them, they at most reach the 3.14 as newbie and reach 3,14159 as experienced mapper. But the further you explore, the more stuff you can achieve in mapping that people dont expect. And it goes into infinity, except its realy hard to reach it. Some people can go as far as 3,1415926535, and some can even remember 100 numbers, but barely anyone can realy apply them to their map. Thats why people keep to the safe 3,14 many times.

Also, taking a standard formula is a good start, if you test your map using that formula you know it will play nice. The trick is to blend 2 good working things together to create a new situation, and that situation can become part of the standard set. You can add a gimmick to that standard set to explore, if it works well or requires tweaking you can apply a few more. But the basics remain the same. And in tf2 this is clearly shown as all the most popular modes are still based on just a control point (some require a flag, some move, some are required to be held over time). And for maps, you can still notice the evolution between popular maps (more paths, and more open fields of playing where old maps were just corridor connected).
If you dont even realize why those 'rules' exist, you just cant make a good map or you must be very lucky (note that many of the old mappers actualy already did know these rules but were unaware of that).